Stiff
by Nan Ma
Summary: WARNING: DISTURBING CONTENT. IMPLIED NECROPHILIA.  Ling Tong seems to blind to the fact that Gan Ning's dead. So Wu is stuck dealing with him carrying a corpse around and believing that it's a living pirate.
1. Chapter 1

There is something to make a man sick to his stomach.

It starts out as an oily, thick smell that rolls in and sticks to the inside of his nostrils. The smell is the hallmark of decay and decomposition, of viscous blister fluid and putrefying flesh. It is a stench on so many different levels: the dull, throbbing ache of rot, the sharp, tangy sting of curdling liquids, the blunt force of fermentation.

Then, tiny, sharp splinters scatter into the air, darting into his ears like a swarm of angry needles. Even before the footsteps, even before the words, and just lurking in the cloud of rot, is the sound of the bells.

When Gan Ning had been alive, that sound had been the omen of death and violence for so many, so much so that temples along the river had began to use gongs instead of bells, the hellish objects. The chiming had been Gan Ning's trademark, his signature and his pride. He had marched under it as if it was a banner, and he had killed behind it as if a cause.

Today, the sounds still ran as little demon heralds running ahead to clog throats with dread, but for an entirely different reason.

The contrast between the smell and the sound, one sense cloudy and the other sense jagged, is sometimes harmonious, sometimes discordant. But always, it floats around its source like a cloud of warning.

Zhou Tai's keen senses pick up the warning before anyone else. He stiffens, alerting his lord to his alarm.

Sun Quan looks up puzzled, but the cloud and the shards fly into the room, and he understands.

It is not long before the others are aware as well. Slowly, their noses are clogged over by a greasy film and their ears hear nothing but the percussion of the pirate's bells.

Ling Tong saunters in. He is not the actual cause of the alarm but is part of it nonetheless.

It is the body that he carries that exudes the mix of stench and sound. Gan Ning has been steadily rotting for about a week, and like any body, shows it in the air and the eyes.

No matter how great or small, how kind or cruel, every body, by its seventh day of death, rots and breaks down like Gan Ning's. But he is still decked out in the clothes and armor that he had died in. Perhaps that armor is what is keeping the body together, or relatively together, as the human parts melt and fall apart.

In his boots, the skin and flesh has long liquefied and melted into a soup. This is the oily slush that leaks out of the tops of his shoes every so often, as the bones are barely held together by the last of the tissue there.

Oblivious to the sickening of others, Ling Tong gently sets the body down and sits next to it. He puts an arm around Gan Ning's shoulders and closes his eyes. One hand reaches over to grasp the gray, clammy hand of the corpse, fingers stroking the bulging, dried knuckles. He hums tunelessly but contentedly, his lips slightly lifted in an unconscious smile.

There is a long silence, broken only by the footsteps of those who truly cannot bear it.

After a while, Ling Tong yawns and opens his eyes. "We finished drilling the new recruits. Han Dang took over."

Sun Quan starts, as if breaking from a trance. "Oh. Yes. Good work, Ling Tong…"

"Yeah, you hear that, Ning? I told you I was doing all the work," Ling Tong snaps.

No one knows what to say. Lu Xun grips his brush and papers, a cold sweat running down his dusky skin.

"You should've seen those new recruits… The moment we stepped out they looked like they were about to keel over! Man, those kids…" Ling Tong chuckles. "Afraid of their own commander? Intimidated, I can understand that, but _that_ afraid? What are we going to do?" he asks lightly.

Once again, no one knows what to say.

Thankfully, Ling Tong does not require a response. He simply leans back, running a hand through corpse's blonde hair. Surprisingly for a corpse, only a few hairs come out with his fingers- perhaps Ling Tong has done something to it? The scalp is taut and dry, pulling what had been the pirate's handsome face into a skull-like grimace.

The wounds that had killed the man are spongy holes now. Yellowish fluid seeps out of a gash along the body cavity, collecting on the edges of the fraying skin. It drips onto Ling Tong's arms, but he does not seem to be aware of it.

"Does he not notice?" Sun Quan whispered quietly. "How can he not- this is madness! Has he gone mad?"

"My lord… I truly do not know." Lu Xun looks worried, but the young minister does not extend his query.

Time to take the plunge. "Ling Tong, you do know that…" Sun Quan begins, standing up with an anxious, concerned expression. "Gan Ning was killed days ago-"

Ling Tong glances up at his lord. "Hey. Lord Sun."

His tongue stiffening with dread, Sun Quan speaks. "Yes, Ling Tong?"

The slender man tilts his head to the side and brushes an errant wash of hair out of his face. "What's wrong?" he asks curiously. "Huh, are you sick?"

_I am going to be. In fact, I am going to be very sick._ Sun Quan dryly swallows, his throat working on so many different sentences. He settles for simply shaking his head.

"You're just looking a bit pale, that's all. But whatever." With a shrug, Ling Tong goes back to tangling his hand with Gan Ning's partially stiff, partially limp one. His bare arm brushes against a spongy mass of tissue falling off of the corpse's arm. He does not seem to notice. Instead, he cranes his long neck over and brushes the body's shriveled cheek with his lips.

Sun Quan falls over, pressing his head to his desk in hopes that perhaps he will wake up out of a drowning nightmare. His lord's distress proves to be too much for Zhou Tai. His face stiff and unmoving, he marches forward to stand in front of Ling Tong, his arms crossed.

"Oh? Hey," Ling Tong says lazily, rising up from another butterfly kiss to the corpse.

Without a word, Zhou Tai reaches out and seizes the pirate's body.

"Hey!" Ling Tong jumps up in surprise. "Zhou Tai, what are you doing? Let him go; no one feels like sparring!"

Zhou Tai ignores him and, with a heave, lifts the corpse up halfway off the couch.

With a shriek, Ling Tong throws himself at Zhou Tai, tackling the bodyguard and raking his face with open hands. Zhou Tai grunts in surprise and drops the body back down, where it falls to its side with the clanging of bells.

"Zhou Tai!" Sun Quan yells as Lu Xun leaps to his feet as well, unsure of what to do.

The loyal bodyguard remains silent, but his expression is clear: _let the body go!_

But clearly Ling Tong has no intention of doing so. His eyes wide and animalistic and his lips open in a horrid snarl, the young man strikes at Zhou Tai's armored form with his bare hands.

Someone, for sure, if going to get hurt. "Zhou Tai! Leave him!" Sun Quan yells. There surely will be a better time and situation another time.

With a grunt, Zhou Tai obeys, ducking and retreating back to the shadow of his lord's side.

Ling Tong freezes for a moment, then slides back into his normal smug posture, his lippy smirk shattering the previous image of a rabid beast. "Man, what is up with you?"

"What's up with _you?_ "Lu Xun shouts angrily, his boyish voice piping cleanly in the air angrily.

"Prude," Ling Tong chuckles indulgently, grasping the corpse in his arms and lifting it to rest on his own lap. He trails his fingers across the dead body's face, across the puckered, gray skin.

"Prude? You're holding a _corpse-_ Gan Ning's dead!" Lu Xun screams accusingly, dropping his writing utensils and standing up.

"A corpse?" Ling Tong laughs as if he has heard a delightfully ridiculous thing. There is nothing forced- it is an open, honest laugh. "C'mon, Lu Xun. I think I'd know if my boyfriend suddenly dropped dead. You hear that, Ning?"

Sun Quan thinks that if he had seen the situation in a play or story it would be darkly comical. But he can see nothing funny about it. "He's not joking. Ling Tong, why can't you see that Gan Ning is dead? That is a corpse you are holding!"

There is a sudden flicker of uncertainly in Ling Tong's eyes. His lips part for a moment, but just a moment. The fragment of a second ends soon, as his normal, smug expression slams back down with a final sort of certainty. "Is this a thought experiment?" he laughs.

"No, Ling Tong, can't you tell-"

"I think it's time for afternoon drill… Does that mean I have to get up?" Ling Tong sighs. "Fine, fine, I'm going, I'm going… C'mon, Ning, that means you too."

"Ling Tong- no, sit back down right now! We're telling you-"

But Ling Tong only lifts the corpse up in his arms, cradling the torso gently as the shriveled head leans against his own cheek. "Really. Can't you do the mind question philosophical experiment thing with someone else? I'm not in the mood," he yawns, stepping through the door and out of the room.

"This is not a joke-"

Zhou Tai rumbles something in his ear.

Sun Quan thinks for a moment, but shakes his head. "No. Don't go after him… Perhaps we should give it more time."

"More time than a week?" Lu Xun moans. "I don't think…"

"More time than a week," Sun Quan says steadfastly. As he looks out of the room after Ling Tong's departure, his eyes are full of a sort of longing.


	2. Chapter 2

"I thought I lost you," he breathes gently, touching his friend's face. He leans his face against the neck, inhaling deeply and brushing his lips against every bit of skin.

"You gave me a scare. But now I know what I want.

I'm kind of glad. I didn't know what I had until I thought I lost it.

I knew I love you but I didn't know how much you really meant to me.

I didn't realize it.

But now we have a second chance. Thanks for scaring me, for warning me. Now I know.

We're back together again.

Don't worry. I'll never let you go. You'll be with me forever."

_Bang._

"Ling Tong!" With uncharacteristic abruptness and lack of courtesy, Lu Xun slams the door open, his childish face steeled in determination.

"Yeah? Hey, what's got you all bothered-"

"Ling Tong, Gan Ning was killed more than a week ago. He's dead. That's a corpse you're holding!" he declares, his voice pointed accusingly.

There is a silence as Ling Tong tilts his head, contemplating Lu Xun's words.

To his surprise, a pouting smile breaks out on the older man's face, and the air fills with amused chuckles.

"Oh, he tricked you too, didn't he?" Ling Tong laughs. "No, Ning just wanted to give us a little scare. Just a bit of a fright, that's all! He just wanted us think he got killed for a moment. He's back now though. It's all okay now."

Thinking he can logic Ling Tong out, Lu Xun clasps his hands together and speaks again. "Then," the boy asks, "then, _why_ would he ever want us to think he was dead? He thought he was invincible. Why would he ever want us to think that he could get-"

"Because we weren't didn't realize that he could be gone one day, without warning," Ling Tong replies, turning his eyes hungrily back to the body he cradled so tenderly. "Because we didn't realize how much he meant, how much he bought to us… Because we didn't realize how horrible, how dark and empty, how dim and faded the world is without him…" Ling Tong's lips lock into a frightening, desperate smile. "I didn't realize how cold it was, like standing alone in winter, when the sky is dark and nothing lives but the snow and the wind. It blows on your face- it's like standing at the end of the world. You look up- nothing! You look down- nothing but yourself. All around- nothing! Nothing but the ice and the wind, flying all around you- can you hear it? The solitude, can you imagine? It is beautiful, but it is bitter, and everything before you turns to dust and ice, and nothing but that, as far as you can see, until it creeps inside you, slows your blood, stops your heart."

Lu Xun shivers, but not because of the chilly nature of the description.

"When I thought that you were dead I was there," Ling Tong continues, bringing the body up against his chest, stroking the petrified, brittle hair. "I was there. But now, now you're back. That was clever, showing me what it would be like without you. Now I can really appreciate you. Now I know what it would be like if you were gone."

He slowly realizes that Ling Tong is not addressing him. Feeling as if he is an invader in the innermost chambers of a taboo, Lu Xun trembles as he watches Ling Tong ghost his lips over the dried, taut skin, the protruding cheekbones of the corpse. "Ling Tong-"

Appearing to break out of a water's surface, Ling Tong shakes his head and tilts his face to Lu Xun. "Hey, hey, you finished your filing yet? I think you took one of my scrolls when you had food poisoning yesterday."

"Food poisoning?" Lu Xun asks quizzically.

Ling Tong nods. "Yeah. When I came into the common study, you just grabbed your stuff, ran out of the room, and threw up."

Lu Xun suddenly steels himself again, his spine snapping to rigor. "No. I was only sick because of the putrid odor of Gan Ning's dead body!" he shouts. "Can't you smell it? Can't you smell rot and decay all over you- it's all over you! It's all around you!"

Ling Tong only rolls his eyes and dramatically sniffs his own underarms. "Nope. Can't smell anything. I wouldn't think you'd have a sensitive nose, after all we've been through," he snorts.

"I have never had the privilege of being stuck in the same room as a week-old decaying body," he declares harshly. "Are you blind? Are you-"

"What are you saying?" Ling Tong snorts. "You kidding us?"

"I'm saying that you-" Lu Xun abruptly shuts his mouth and sighs. "Ling Tong, Gan Ning has been dead for more than a week and you are just hauling around a corpse! Everyone else can see it, even if you can't! Are you mad?" the young minister shouts, turning on his heel and slamming the door behind him in rudeness and boldness unusual in him.

But Ling Tong does not seem to mind. He kisses the corpse's shriveled ear again and hums happily.

"We've all already lost so much. Sometimes, just one more loss is much more than just one more loss," he says quietly.

But a moment later, he forgets what he meant.

* * *

Oh writing, why so crappy? You do not love me anymore? I thought we had something special!


	3. Chapter 3

Leathery skin, parched by sun and air by exposed swathes while smeared and leaking in the shadows of armor, lay dappled in sunlight.

"It's a nice day, isn't it?" Ling Tong asks lazily.

The corpse is silent and still to everyone in reality, except for Ling Tong. The dead man speaks to no one else, or perhaps it is simply that no one else can hear.

The slender man laughs delightedly, his eyes squeezing shut from his smile. "Ning!" he exclaims when his chuckles die down. He rolls over onto his side to kiss the corpse delicately. "You have a point, man."

The lips of the corpse are long deflated, stretched out into a square grimace. No one else can see whatever Ling Tong sees.

He props his head up on his arm and closes his eyes as a leaf touches down gently on the corpse. He gently pushes it off with a fingertip before leaning in closer.

"You know, we used to never have time like this to ourselves." Ling Tong closes his eyes as a soft breeze touches his bangs. "I love it out here with you, Ning. Just us and summer and nothing else in the world. I wish we never had to go back. I wish we could just stay like this forever."

The body is still, but perhaps Ling Tong feels a touch that no one else can, as he puts his hand gently on his own elbow, as in response to a lover's fingers.

"Ning… Why don't we just go out? I mean for a while. A day or two, why don't we?" He suddenly rolls to a squat, his eyes lively. "Come on. Let's go, now! Let's just walk off together and pretend like it's just the two of us and that nothing else matters. Yeah- let's go right now!" Ling Tong's face lights up as he cradles the corpse in his arms. "We'll go fishing, your way like you showed me before." _Let's pretend just for a while that we're the only two people in the world, that we're just children lost in a fairytale. Let's look out and see nothing but sky and grass as far as our eyes go. It'll be just you and me. Yes, just you and me, me and you, together. _

He rises up, scribbles a quick note, and nails it to the tree with a twig. That done, Ling Tong gently lifts the corpse, resting the head against his shoulder.

"Let's go."

* * *

"He just walked off?" Sun Quan asks in disbelief.

The servant nods, eyeing the hastily-written note. "Yes. A houseboy says that he saw General Ling just walk off with the body."

"What- he's not just-" the lord sighs, pressing his hand against his forehead. "Well, he writes here that he'll be back in a day or two. They're just going out fishing nearby- what's the harm?"

"The harm is that he is sinking further into this madness," Lu Xun asserts, his little eyebrows knotted angrily. "My lord, there is no middle line. If you do not stop this you are practically encouraging it."

"I'm afraid he is right, my lord," Huang Gai growls. "If you do nothing…"

"We can send out our trackers. Zhou Tai can probably sniff him out in a second," Cheng Pu adds.

Sun Quan lets out a moan and covers his face. "I cannot bear to."

All the ministers look at their lord in shock.

"I… It would gladden my heart if we let them relax just for a while alone," he admits slowly.

There is an awkward cough before Lu Fan raises his voice in agreement. "…It would rest easy on my old heart as well. I do not relish the thought of dragging him back here right away."

"But if we do not act we condone," Lu Xun replies testily. "And it's for his own good. He can't keep going like this, like a madman! This is insane! Just order him, tell him-"

"I can't tell him no!" Sun Quan cries.

"Why not?" Huang Gai demands. "Why can you not order us to seize the body right now, and shake some sense into that boy? Send someone after him!"

"I can't, I just can't. My generals, my two generals, they have been cheated of happiness like this for so long. I can't bear to take it away from them!"

"But you are so sure he'll come back," Huang Gai asks.

Sun Quan doesn't reply, but the young lord tightens his lips and looks out to the horizon, where somewhere out there, at least one man knows peace.


	4. Epilogue

In the coming autumn, the forest is chilly. There is not even a village in sight, but Ling Tong does not seem to mind. He laughs again, kissing and stroking the corpse, holding it as if to never let go.

A cry of delight rings out in the night air.

Gan Ning hovers above him, smiling, laughing.

See me? Do you see me now? I'm here- I'll always be with you; I'll never leave you. A hand strokes his cheek gently, and Ling Tong smiles, chuckling and returning the favor. He digs his elbows deeper into the ground as the pirate presses his body down on him, kissing him eagerly and passionately.

I'll never go away. I'll be with you forever. See? Don't you trust me? I'll be with you forever. You'll never have to be without me. Won't that make you happy?

Ling Tong smiles, a wet blush across his cheeks as he twists his body underneath Gan Ning's reassuring weight, watching the pirate smile and laugh, entangling their bodies together.

From now on, the only thing that matters is you and me, us, together. We'll be together forever, I swear, I promise. Right, Ling Tong? We'll stay like this forever.

* * *

"After someone spotted him in Danyang, he disappeared for a month. But I just received a report that two weeks ago, someone saw him in Yuzhang. That is the last report," Lu Xun finishes.

Cheng Pu coughs uncomfortably. "He is mad."

"That, he is," Lu Xun sighs. "What should…"

There is a silence. Nothing stirs but motes of dust in the sunlight, late in the afternoon, from the windows thrown open to let in the clear air.

Finally, Lu Su speaks again. "It has been months," he states. "It would be foolish to wait any longer. My lord…"

"Illness." Sun Quan says, staring at the scrolls in front of him without blinking. "Ling Tong... He has been through enough, without having his name dragged through the dirt. Make it official. He died of illness."

Han Dan looks at him admiringly. "My lord, that is a good thing to do for him. Everyone saves face. And... Truly, we cannot sit around hoping that he will come to his sense."

"We cannot wait in hope anymore- none have had that luxury for a very long time." Sun Quan rolls his jade stamp around in his hand, watching the light glint off of the translucent stone. "And what a luxury it was…"

"We will continue."

"We will." Sun Quan looks up to the ceiling, composing himself before rising. He trembles for the barest second before Zhou Tai, from behind, puts a steadying hand on his shoulder. "Lu Su… Here are my orders. Continue with the naval exercises, and begin transporting grain supplies for the cavalry north. We will be ready for another spearhead north of the Yangtze in a month. Lu Xun, continue raising troops along the local provinces. Cheng Pu, I trust that you will know to call your duty as you see fit."

"Of course."

"Yes, my lord."

"I will."

"I adjourn this meeting." Sun Quan sits back down, gazing at the men before him. All the stalwart men of Wu, waiting on the cusp of an order to range forth and fight on…

"We must go on," a voice behind him says, on the very border of being within hearing and being within silence. Zhou Tai nods only slightly. "All have lost. You did the right thing."

"If he ever comes back, though…" Sun Quan says softly. "There will always be a place for him here."

* * *

_**February 23, 1987. **_

_Excavations have continued on a promising archeological site fifty miles outside Guiyang city limits. The site was previously buried, but recent construction activity has revealed what seems to be the foundation and a sealed basement of a structure matching the location and description of Huiyang Monastery, a building thought to have been destroyed sometime before the Tang Dynasty. The monastery is believed to have been built during the second or third centuries AD. _

_Most fascinatingly, two peculiar remains have found sealed within an underground structure of the monastery. It is hypothesized that they were visitors, perhaps pilgrims or travelers, who died at the monastery and were intended to be stored only temporarily, but circumstances forced the inhabitants of the monastery to flee before a burial was performed. _

_The remains are aged to the late Han Dynasty and are both male. They were found interlocked with each other, as if the taller one had died holding the shorter one tightly. The taller skeleton's clothing is completely disintegrated, but the metal pieces presumably once belonging to it are currently undergoing study at the University of Cambridge. The shorter skeleton, however, was found in a full, intact set of military-style armor that was probably once red in color. Several bells were found around the skeleton._

_The shorter body shows signs of trauma due to weapons and was found with arrowheads within the thorax. The cause of death is clear._

_The taller skeleton was in good shape. There are no signs of violence of any unnatural causes. One could presume that he simply lay down and died one day. The cause of death is unknown._


End file.
